Endnu et eksempel på mediernes manipulation

After being once more defamed and insulted by Guilad, I have decided to explain once and for all the so called “garbage dump” pictures, shot in the afternoon of July 17th in Kfar Chima, near Beirut.

Around 3:30 pm, I was in the office of Mr. Abisaad, the French press attaché at the French Embassy, when Lebanese TV started to show looped footage of a large metallic object falling from the sky and exploding upon touching the ground, the subsequent fire seemed to be massive. The TV announced it as an Israeli jet being shot down over an army base in Kfar Chima about 4 miles from where I was. I took my car and rushed to the scene. Arriving more or less at the same time were other photographers including Stephanie Sinclair, Mitch and Tanya Habjouka.

This is the picture published by US News,

and this is my original caption for it:

“Kfar Chima, near Beirut, July 17, 2006 An Israeli Air Force F16 has alledgedly been shot down while bombing a group of Hezbollah owned trucks, at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher.”

This caption clearly says that there is no proof that an Israeli jet had been shot down and that the objective was indeed to destroy a legitimate military target.

A week later TIME published this image shot at the same time as the first: They choose to caption it this way (I had NO control in this matter), they HAD my original caption:

“The wreckage of a downed Israeli jet that was targeting Hizballah trucks billows smoke behind a Hizballah gunman in Kfar Chima, near Beirut. Jet fuel set the surrounding area ablaze.”

In the meantime, after returning 3 times to the site, and collected more evidence, I had modified my original caption to this:

“Kfar Chima, near Beirut, July 17, 2006 The Israeli Air Force bombed a group of Hezbollah chartered trucks parked on the back of large Lebanese Army barracks , at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher, at least one missile was hit, misfiring high into the sky before falling down and starting a huge fire in the barracks’ parking lot.”...This is a very important piece of evidence showing probable collusion between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army, there is little doubt that the Lebanese Army was aware of the presence of at least one missile launcher and at least one large missile on their parking lot. The size of the launcher, destroyed a couple of days later from the ground by an unknown party suggest missiles 10 to 14 meters long.

There were 6 to 8 large articulated trucks parked there, making it a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force, quite far away from civilian houses.